Embodiments are generally related to electronic commerce and, more particularly, to electronic payments made by a consumer to a merchant. Customers or consumers of merchant stores or retail establishments often pay for goods or services using a payment or transaction card such as a credit card, debit card and prepaid payment card. For this purpose, a merchant may manually enter credit card data into a payment terminal or the consumer or merchant may swipe the card through a payment terminal to complete the transaction, or the consumer may make an on-line purchase through a merchant's website. Such payment or transaction cards have been utilized for a number of years.
Some consumers utilize mobile communication devices for making payments to merchants, e.g., using a smartphone that includes a payment application or software program that is operable as a mobile wallet. Thus, rather than payment by cash, check or credit card, a consumer utilizes a mobile communication device for payment. For example, certain known mobile wallet devices allow a user to “tap” the smartphone on a merchant reader or electronic payment device to establish a connection with the reader or device allowing the smartphone to send payment or transaction card data to the merchant to pay the merchant for the item purchased.
While many electronic transactions have been successfully completed using electronic payment instruments such as credit cards, which have been utilized for years, and mobile wallets have more recently been utilized, current electronic payment systems and methods have significant limitations and shortcomings with respect to how consumers decide which payment or transaction card to utilized, particularly in real-time during a transaction or at the point of sale where the consumer may not know or consider the various benefits available to the consumer depending on which electronic payment instrument is utilized for the transaction, and the consumer is in line with other consumers waiting to purchase their items.
Consumers typically carry a wallet and carry multiple credit cards, and these same credit cards may also be part of a mobile wallet application that allows the consumer to make payments using a smartphone. It is estimated that an average U.S. consumer carries 4.4 credit cards in their wallet, and many consumers have more, and these credit cards may be from different issuing financial institutions, each of which has a different contacts or terms and conditions that specify terms such as interest rates, payment cycles, and rewards (if rewards are offered).
However, consumers may not know or may not remember the terms and conditions of the contract that governs their use of their various credit or other transaction or payment card such as interest rates and rewards terms, and issues are increasingly problematic the more credit cards a consumer has. Thus, if a consumer carries five credit cards, for example, there may be five different sets of terms and conditions that apply to each of the five different credit cards such that credit cards may involve five different annual percentage rates (APRs) and five different rewards programs, each of which may also have certain requirements or restrictions and may involve different types of rewards such as cash back, miles, points, etc. Thus, it can be very confusing to consumers to know exactly what terms and conditions apply to a credit card, particularly considering that issuers often update or change terms and conditions, and certain terms and conditions (such as interest rate) may be fixed rates or variable rates that adjust depending on factors such as the prime rate, credit available and balance.
Current systems and methods are also associated with limitations on issuers and card associations with regard to the limited ability to reach out to consumers to try to influence consumers to use their cards. More specifically, once a card is issued to a consumer, issuers do not have an effective method to influence consumer choice or behavior to select the issuer's card for a given purchase. Instead, issuers are often left to resort to general mail and e-mail advertisements, but such advertisements are often ignored by consumers and do have only a small impact, if any, on a consumer at the time of purchase.
Thus, current electronic payment systems and methods present shortcomings and limitations on both consumers and issuers.